![]() ![]() Four days later, he died of complications. In 1987, Warhol underwent gall bladder surgery. ![]() Art critic Robert Hughes noted that a Warhol portrait “zipped a corpse into a Halston, painted its eyelids and propped it in the back of a limo, where it moves but cannot speak.” Warhol created up to 50 portraits per year, earning approximately $2 million, some tender and some formulaic. Some called Warhol the “court painter of the 1970s.” He received commissions from wealthy socialites, musicians, and film stars. As a social observer hankering for visibility himself, portraits were Warhol’s natural metier and they constitute his biggest surviving body of work. In the 1970s, Warhol returned to portraiture in earnest. Warhol’s Return to Portraiture: I Am Flashed Therefore I Am Even Warhol, who was addicted to amphetamines to enable him to stay trim and work into the wee hours, gave up drugs.Īndy Warhol, detail Elvis Eleven Times, 1963 5. ![]() Warhol recovered to live another 20 years.Įventually, over time, the bohemian allure of the Factory ebbed. In 1968, a fringe Factory member with schizophrenia shot Warhol and nearly killed him. He lived with Jed Johnson, later a leading NYC decorator, for 12 years. He had several partners throughout his life, despite repeatedly claiming to be a virgin. Though he had a sort of romance with Sedgwick, Warhol was a gay man. Like Monroe, she died young, possibly committing suicide from barbituates at 28. She was a variation of Marilyn Monroe, radiant but drugged-up and damaged. In 1965, Sedgwick was a legendary NYC “it girl,” renowned doe-eyed delicate beauty, and leading lady in 10 Warhol movies. Warhol’s most famous movies were with his smart-dumb twin and wayward princess, Edie Sedgwick. Except the the films were the opposite of Hollywood, abjuring any narrative sequence with lengthy uncut sequences. The Factory became an artist’s version of a Hollywood studio. Photo of the Silver Factory at the museum He made 600 reality TV-like film portraits, featuring intimate scenes from daily life and psychosexual dramas. Warhol quickly announced his “retirement” from painting and furiously made movies instead. The real man inside was different than his inscrutable mute exterior. Nicknamed “Drella” (a fitting mash up of Dracula and Cinderella), he adopted a dandy-like deadpan visage, mostly as a smoke screen and visual aid. There, he presided, Wizard of Oz style, over a disaffected coterie of pseudo followers - drug addicts, outcasts, bored curiosity seekers, disenfranchised poor rich kids, and anti-establishment types.Īlways self-absorbed, Warhol enjoyed his narcissistic fame in his crazy toy theater. Warhol’s studio was essentially a creative playpen, decorated in aluminum foil and silver spray paint. In 1964, Warhol moved into what was dubbed the “ Silver Factory” in midtown Manhattan. The fourth floor Mao installation in the Warhol museum - suggesting that perhaps Warhol wasn’t entirely apolitical 4. But Abstract Expressionism, a period of art history I adore, had seen its day. The serious and scowling post-Abstract Expressionists scorned him as a shallow philistine and kept their distance. Warhol tried to befriend Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Despite being labeled a “loser,” a “groupie,” and a “sphinx without a secret,” Warhol persisted, with the voracious single mindedness of a starving animal. He wanted to be a superstar, like Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollack, who appeared in Time Magazine in 1949. His images appeared in the New York Times.īut Warhol had greater ambitions. Warhol invented the blotted line technique, which is actually quite beautiful and distinct from his later and much colder pop art. He worked for magazines, art directors, fashion brands, and magazines. Learning the power of advertising, Warhol made money illustrating everything, especially shoes. One of Warhol’s beautiful shoe adds for I. ![]()
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